Faculty Update: Hyo-Dong Lee

At its spring meeting, the Drew University Board of Trustees approved the recommendation of Dean Kuan and the Theological School’s Committee on Faculty to promote Dr. Hyo-Dong Lee to Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy, with tenure. Professor Lee holds the PhD from Vanderbilt University, and previously taught in the Department of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges before he joined the faculty of the Drew University Theological School and its Graduate Division of Religion in 2007. Professor Hyo-Dong Lee is a native of South Korea and holds a B.A. from Yonsei University in Seoul. In addition to his Vanderbilt PhD, Dr. Lee’s postgraduate work includes an M.A. from McGill University and the M.Div. from the United Theological College. He received ordination in the United Church of Canada.

Professor Lee’s research and teaching interests include comparative theology and comparative philosophy of religion, with a focus on the dialogue between the Christian/Western theological and philosophical tradition and Northeast Asian philosophical and religious thought, including Confucianism, Daoism, Donghak, etc. His interests extend also to postcolonial theories and European postmodern thought.

Professor Lee’s publications include “‘Empty and Tranquil, and Without Any Sign, and Yet All Things are Already Luxuriantly Present’: A Comparative-Theological Reflection on the Manifest Spirit” in Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicity and Relations (2010) and “The Heart-Mind of the Way and the Human Heart-Mind are Non-Dual: A Reflection on the Neo-Confucian ‘Panentheism’ of Zhu Xi and Nongmun” to be published in Panentheism in World Religions (2013). Dr. Lee’s full elaboration of these ideas is soon to appear in a book entitled Spirit, Qi, and the Multitude: A Comparative Theology for the Democracy of Creation, to be published by Fordham University Press in the fall of 2013.

Please join the Drew Theological School community as it celebrates Dr. Lee’s teaching and scholarship.